


Isle Fractions

by Umi (umichii)



Category: Groove Adventure RAVE | Rave Master
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-11
Updated: 2016-11-12
Packaged: 2017-10-30 23:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/337138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/umichii/pseuds/Umi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his wife died, King receives a letter from their solicitor that they have a family estate in Garage Town about to be demolished if left uninhabited. Thinking of starting a new life, he and his son Lucia move to Valentine Manor and begins the difficult task of renovating it. But this seems almost impossible as old spirits were disturbed and Lucia gradually uncovers the secrets behind the Valentine Manor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Down the Road

**Author's Note:**

> Considering that this is the obligatory fandom ghost fic, major character deaths (emphasis on plural) is a given because how are we going to have a cast of ghosts if no one's dead?

Lucia stared out the car window, chin propped on top of his fist. Beside him in the driver’s seat, King hummed a soft tune from some obscure song of the 40’s rock band Demon Card.

They had been on the road the entire day. A few more hours and the road would be dark. Lucia hoped they will arrive at their new home by nightfall.

 _Home_. The word hung too heavy in Lucia’s mind.

As the road got bumpier, Lucia recollected his thoughts about the entire decision to move. His stepmother died just two months ago. His father, King, was totally devastated by it. As usual.

Lucia didn’t really care. They were never close to begin with, probably because Lucia stopped trying after the second stepmother. After her burial, as if through some weird sleight of hand from the fates, the family solicitor called and notified them about an old estate that their grandfather used to own. The place was completely abandoned for almost fifty years and was about to be demolished if no one from the family claims it within the year.

But his father, being the sentimental fool that he was, decided that with the death of his latest wife, it was time for them to start over and move to a new place in a new town _again_.

 _And probably remarry again, like_ last _time_ , Lucia thought darkly as he glared at nothing in particular. He just felt like smoldering something in repressed anger.

The old estate—new house?—was actually located a hundred miles away from their home, Mary Loose. Ideally, going there by ship or plane was the smarter choice, but his father, the cheapskate that he naturally was, thought to drive all the way there. That would mean crossing five towns and probably five or six hotels as well. They began travelling six days ago, starting early in the morning, and now, there was nothing Lucia wanted more than to actually arrive at the damn house and sleep on an actual bed, maybe with a warm bath in between, assuming that the house was already habitable of course. At this point, Lucia just wanted to let his father know how terrible of an idea this whole moving and starting over was. They had already moved in and out of four towns over the course of his seventeen years of living. This one would mark the fifth. Lucia desperately prayed it to be the last one as well. He already had enough. It wasn’t his fault if his father never seemed able to settle in one place for too long, always looking for a reason to move.

The car made a screeching noise when it trodden over something presumably large, the jolt startling Lucia completely awake, back snapping ramrod straight before turning to glare at his father.

“What the hell?”

“Relax, it’s probably just a rock.” His father made a low chuckle. A large hand let go of the steering wheel just to ruffle already unruly blond hair. “Go back to sleep, kiddo.”

Lucia huffed loudly and resumed ignoring his father. The rest of the ride was spent in silence, except for King’s continuous humming of old 40’s rock songs.

 

 

By nighttime, they finally arrived at Garage Island. It had nothing in comparison to an island, more like a ghost town actually with a few low buildings scattered here and there in various stages of decay. Lucia could see a small hospital-clinic hybrid and the police station in the same street and across it a pub and an apothecary, the town hall in an enclosed area between them. This must be the town center already.

King parked them outside the pub. When they stepped off, Lucia found his feet landing on a rough dirt road. From outside, the town looked completely isolated. Not a single building seemed to be occupied, and definitely no sign of life anywhere. A nagging worry began to creep up Lucia’s mind.

“Dad, are you sure this is the right place?”

His father pointed at a sign post situated from the direction they came from. “If that’s not a ‘Welcome to Garage Town’ sign, then I don’t know what that is.” Frankly, Lucia found nothing welcoming here. His father tried to sound nonchalant, but Lucia could easily detect the uncertainty there. “Anyway, it’s a few more miles before we reach the house. Let’s stretch our legs and maybe have some grub.”

As reluctant as he was, Lucia had to agree with his father. They entered the pub, and Lucia can’t stop his grimace. Old, greasy men were clearly loitering around, some unconscious either on table or on the floor.

“Dad…”

“Keep close, kiddo.”

Lucia didn’t bother to argue. They headed to the bar area. Lucia made the mistake of standing next to a drunken man with a fuzzy beard who just in time with his arrival slumped all over him. He was able to evade most of the man’s figure, his body-evading skills honed from years of escaping from bullies, but flailing limbs aside, Lucia was ready to bolt from this awful place.

Behind the bar, a girl barely eighteen was polishing some glasses with a white rug. King pulled out a hundred Edel bill from his battered wallet, and with that weird Din accent he had picked up from living in the desert during his youth, he said to the girl: “Fifty for food, the rest for gas.”

The girl just looked at King with a raised eyebrow, which Lucia noticed was pierced and tattooed, before she snatched the money and walked away, maybe to call someone else to do the work.

The moment the girl left, he quickly turned around and told his father he would wait in the car instead. He’d take the stiff car chair and the heat over this smelly place. Something felt off and this place had the feeling of wrong all over it. If there was one thing Lucia trusts, it’s his intuition.

The stifling humidity of the town only chilled Lucia to the bones despite the black hoodie he had on. Pulling the car door open, he settled in and patiently waited for his father to come back with the supplies. It was only five minutes after when he realized his father actually asked for fuel from a pub.

 

 

_“And now I’m slowing it down and I’m looking around…”_

“Dad, stop singing.”

“ _And worried ‘bout noth_ —the hell?!”

“You were asking for it,” Lucia said, fingers not leaving the radio’s switch to make sure his father wouldn’t try to turn the damn thing on again. His eyes glared at the identical ones opposite him. “Your singing is driving me crazy.”

King snorted at this and turned back to the road, but not after swatting Lucia’s hand off the radio’s switch away.

“Someday you’re gonna learn how to respect your father.”

“How can I do that when you don’t even respect me?” he couldn’t help but mutter softly, barely a whisper, but before King could think of asking for an explanation, Lucia went back to watching trees.

His father must have thought it counterproductive to turn the radio back on, so instead he began humming his favorite 40’s rock music, fingers tapping the tune against the steering wheel absentmindedly.

They were almost a mile away from the town center now. There was an uphill path leading to the estate marked by heavily vandalized sign of ‘Valentine Manor: 1km north’ that told them they were near. Twenty minutes later, they finally arrived outside an enormous but rusty pair of gates that looked like prison bars, a haunted-looking mansion beyond it.

Eyes wide, Lucia stared at the definitely creepy-looking manor, hands instinctively palming his side of the cardoor locked. The solicitor did say it was an estate so they assumed it must be a huge land and maybe a house for a big family, but he didn’t expect it to be a _manor_.

“Dad, are you _really_ sure this the right place?”

“Has to be, kiddo,” King muttered, also staring at the manor warily.

There was a man waiting for them beyond the gate, waving rather enthusiastically. Lucia was half-expecting some gigantic head to burst out of the mansion’s door anytime soon and maybe grab the unsuspecting man like those horror movies.

“I didn’t know there’s gonna be a welcoming party,” King mentioned as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “Come on.” Lucia grunted in reply and copied his father. He followed reluctantly.

Car doors opened and closed simultaneously. Father and son climbed up the rest of the hilly driveway, shoes crunching twigs and dead leaves. They jumped a bit when the rusted gate opened with barely a touch of King’s hand.

Hand still waving, the man smiled widely at them in greeting. “Howdy, guys. Glad y’can make it all the way up here! Neways, gotta make ‘is quick. Hafta leave, y’know?”

“You are…?”

“Genma,” the man introduced himself like they were supposed to know him. When they just stared at him in awkward silence, Genma laughed and added: “the caretaker.”

Nodding slowly, King muttered he wasn’t aware there was a caretaker but listened anyway to the man’s summary of the situation. Meanwhile, Lucia looked around the grounds, examining the mansion’s vine and moss infested windows and walls. Beside the main house were more fields overridden by tall and unkempt grass (more like hedges, really) and shrubberies. Everything was either painted from the inside with tar or barricaded with planks. Lucia could spot what might look like a mausoleum at the far distance. What was his grandfather thinking, buying this place?

“Yer ol’ man Shakuma tol’ me to manage this estate ‘til you decide to take over. Boy, y’ave no idea how glad I am y’cide to come and take it off me hands.”

“I didn’t know Dad had someone watching over it,” King answered

The two went on to talk more about the estate’s state of management and what needed to be renovated or fixed. It turned out that there was no management at all and the house was as empty and abandoned as it looked.

Ignoring the still talking man, Lucia went back to observing the mansion façade, taking care to note down the windows that needed repair or were barricaded from the inside. It was then where in the left corner of his vision, he saw the fluttering of curtains like something white caught in motion. Stepping closer, his eyes squinted to inspect the second floor window.

He blinked and nothing moved. Then he blinked again and then there it was: that glimpse of white, almost silver from the glint of sunlight on glass window, and a shadow behind it. Blinking rapidly, Lucia rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palm before looking back to observe the window. The curtains were not fluttering anymore and there was no shadow behind it.

“What the…”

“And that’s all y’need t’know,” Genma’s voice boomed loudly over the grounds. “Hope ya dun get a rowdy time with this ol’ gran’ma. She can get a li’l cranky when some folks try t’settl’in.” Lucia thought maybe he should have told the solicitor that before the latter even thought of telling his father about this place.

Lucia turned away to return to his father. King was grinning at Genma as they shook hands. Genma handed over a large ring of keys and a smaller ring holding a bigger key. With one last wave at them, Genma walked away.

King was too occupied with telling Lucia about making duplicate copies of the keys and Lucia was too engrossed with studying the strangely crafted keys that they had not thought of asking Genma how he was going back to town or where he was even supposed to return to.

The keys, upon Lucia’s discovery, were old and brass. The singular big key was made of bronze, its shape suggesting it to be a skeleton key. The rest of the brass keys differed in size and shape, ranging from the size of a finger to as tiny as his thumb. He tried counting them but stopped after the thirtieth. He would do it in the morning instead, preferably when he did not feel half-dead.

While King went back to their car to bring it in, Lucia walked to the front porch to test the skeleton key, but not before sparing one last look at the leftmost second-level window. There was neither movement nor shadow, but Lucia swore he could see something silver glinting inside.

 

 

_“They’re here.”_

A giggle.

_“Here we go again…”_

A sigh.

_“Why don’t we make it worth their while?”_

Silence. Then a chuckle.

_“They’re different.”_

Cold, lifeless fingers twisted around the window’s lever, gazing out at the young blond who was walking up to the front door.

_“…I think it’ll be fun.”_

The Cheshire grinned.


	2. Look Up, Not Down

The house was proving to be a gigantic box of surprises. Some of the keys didn’t even belong to doors; some to cabinets, some to trunks, one even to an empty, broken jewelry box. At this stage, Lucia found it wise to assume anything in the house that had a keyhole must have its corresponding key.

The house was also insanely _huge_ , not just outside but also inside. He could finally say this after he had gotten lost twice while venturing into the east wing alone. Out of the forty-seven keys, he was able to label eleven of them already.

Right now, he stood underneath a trapdoor that must lead to an attic. He had no idea yet how to find the right key to its lock, if it has one in the first place. He considered it lucky that some of the doors had no lock.

Slipping the crude map of the mouse he had made into his hoodie’s pocket and the keyring secured around a wrist, Lucia began the difficult task of jumping and pulling the trapdoor down. After three jumps, he was finally able to activate its stairs mechanism (that thin string _was_ the lever, not a spider-web leftover) and down a stair-like ladder collapse into place.

How his father planned to renovate this place without having its blueprint at the least, he had no idea. The place felt like a maze. The only thing they were able to agree on was to make it as habitable as possible, and that included throwing away or selling whatever they didn’t need.

Lucia climbed to the top of the ladder and began the tiresome ritual of matching key to keyhole. When the lock made a clicking sound, Lucia cheered and pushed the trapdoor open and pulled himself over its mouth.

It was an attic and it seemed to stretch on and on. Windows facing the garden lined along one side of the attic. Wooden crates and cloth-covered furniture and fixture took up most of the dusty surface. Anything Lucia touched, a print was left behind and the dirtier his hands and pants became, and for the first time since they arrived, Lucia met the inhabitants: rats.

A tiny black one stared at him from its perch on the nearest crate, its whiskers twitching. “Oh, go away,” Lucia hissed at it, hands shooing it away. “What’s with house pests nowadays? As if we owe them something…”

Grumbling and cursing the existence of said pests (dust bunnies included), Lucia returned to his original task. Halfway to checking the crates, all of which were nailed shut, the sound of footsteps downstairs tore him away from his focus. Lucia turned his head expectantly at the opened trapdoor. After some creaking sound of protest from the pull-down ladder, up appeared King wearing a ridiculous fur-lined jacket.

“Look’t what I found, kid.” His father pulled himself over the trapdoor with a heave, disturbing the dust cloud around them. “An authentic Winchester that literally packs a bullet, dating probably back to 30’s. It’s unbelievable!”

Lucia could feel a corner of his cheek twitching, half in annoyance and half in fear. “Don’t wave that thing around like that. Does it even have a safety lock?”

His father gave him a pitying look. Unlike someone who grew up in the desert, Lucia had no idea about guns. “It’s an ancient gun, Lu. Probably rusted from the years. It’s pretty much useless.”

Lucia rolled his eyes and returned to the crates. He could hear King putting the gun down and walking around the attic, knocking occasionally on whatever surface he could knock.

For someone who was a complete failure in being an attentive father, King quite understood Lucia’s need to be alone. Lucia was a wallflower by nature, which King had always claimed responsibility to and wasn’t that completely odd? But his father seemed to be under the belief that his absence at home directly resulted to his antisocial tendencies, probably because King had always been too occupied with work and proving that he could provide for all of Lucia’s needs, which he realized must be why King had always been unnaturally patient with him, even when Lucia was beyond the tolerable level of rude.

King frequently mentioned how much he resemble his mother, not just in looks but also in mannerism, that perhaps if she was still alive, Lucia wouldn’t be so detached from the world and they wouldn’t be where they were, constantly moving from town to town, his father gaining and losing a wife in each. It was, quite honestly, very tiresome, not that Lucia never thought of their arrangement being harder on his father. He was more surprised that his father never snapped from sitting by the sidelines all these years while Lucia went on to do his things however he wanted.

The silence stretched on inside the attic as father and son investigated the attic on their separate ways. The attic was deeper than they first imagined, probably spanning the entire length of the east wing. Beyond the initial crates were cloth-covered pieces of furniture and fixtures and whatever equipment that seemed belonging to olden periods. Lucia fumbled around from closed boxes to locked chests while King pulled off the cloths check what could be salvaged and what to throw away.

In one of the trunks he found was a small box, ornately decorated with jewels and twisted rods of silver and gold. It had a keyhole not similar to those he found around the house, so he presumed it must be some sort of personalized jewelry box. When he shook it, something rattled inside.

Curiosity piqued, Lucia half-turned to call out for his dad. He stopped when he saw his father staring at a worn mirror balanced against a tall stack of crates with uncharacteristically wide eyes. He followed his father’s line of sight and he almost dropped the jewelry box on hand. What should have been his father’s reflection in the other side of the mirror was nothing.

Neither of them moved an inch nor spoke a word. They just stayed rooted to their spot, until curiosity finally got the better of Lucia. He approached his father, and when he was sure he was standing behind his father, he bent sideways and stared at the mirror, expecting to see his head.

However, there was still nothing. The only thing reflected back was the portion of the attic behind them, boxes and trunks opened halfway, folds of dirty, white cloths littering the dusty, wooden floor. It was as if the mirror couldn’t reflect living things.

“Do you think it’s broken, Dad?”

When his father didn’t answer him, Lucia frowned and tried catching his father’s attention again by tugging a jacket sleeve.

As if snapping out of a trance, King blinked rapidly, body tensing then slouching as he rubbed his eyes.

“What…”

“You okay, Dad?” Lucia tried again. When his father answered with a soft ‘Yeah,’ he pulled away slowly before covering the mirror again with its cloth.

“That was weird,” King told him. “It felt like something was pounding in the back of my head, like bloodrush or something.”

Lucia watched his father warily, a bit of worry beginning to nag him. “Maybe you should take a rest, Dad. You’re not that young anymore.”

King shook his head slightly as he agreed to Lucia’s suggestion. “I’ll be downstairs, yeah?” Lucia watched him climb down the steps worriedly, his father cradling his probably still aching head with one hand once he touched the ground.

“Rest, Dad.”

Lucia decided he’ll ask questions before going to bed. Or during dinner, whichever seemed appropriate enough. He just hoped they had aspirins. His father would need that. Lucia gave the mirror one last look. Maybe it was broken. That must be why it was up here in the attic, hidden away. Dismissing that matter, Lucia pick up the jewelry box and sorted it into the OK pile before moving on to the next box, this one stamped with ‘Fragile’ on all of its sides. It was a small box the size of his lap. Flipping the lid open, Lucia peered inside it.

Most of the items were personal effects. There were a lot of framed pictures, envelopes, letters, and what Lucian could guess was a journal surrounded by a few chips of porcelain and glass from a broken figurine.

Settling onto a much comfortable seating position, with his legs crossed, Lucia began studying the items one by one. Most of the pictures were faded, all sepia in hue, of people he guessed must be the previous owners. They looked like solo portraits taken alongside family pictures, but the faces of the people in it were too unrecognizable. The envelopes were open, all of them have wax seal still attached to the envelop lips. There was nothing descriptive about the seals though, so Lucia just set it aside.

When he had finally reached the journal, brushing away some of the porcelain shards, he stared at its worn leather cover and at the large crest engraved on it. His fingers stroked the brand almost in awe, some portion of the cold, faded brass already black with age. It was in a shape of a cross with two swords crossed over it. He was about to open the journal when a loud bang bellowed from floors below.

Heart jumping, Lucia cast aside the journal and the rest of objects back into the box without another thought and quickly ran down to wherever the sound came from. Experience told him it must have been from the kitchen. Something always explodes when his father’s in a kitchen.

It turned out that the rat he had previously shooed away was terrorizing his father in the kitchen.

“Remind me to call pest control later!” his father shouted in frustration as he tried whacking the rat with a broom.

Oddly, Lucia found his father back on his feet and his loud self to be comforting. Almost smiling, he just shook his head. “Let’s just have dinner in the great hall, Dad.”

And thus they managed to make a campsite out of the huge foyer, his father sitting on top of an airbed as Lucia sat on his sleeping bag.

Lucia didn’t think of returning to the attic for the rest of the day. Instead, father and son made a quick work of cleaning the kitchen.

That night, before Lucia went to sleep, he added the new places he had discovered onto his crude map. As he was circling the attic to remind himself to go back there, he felt air blowing against the paper he had laid out on the floor.

“What the…”

Folding the paper over, Lucia found nothing wrong with the wooden floorboards. He tried knocking, and as suspected, it sounded hollow. Deciding to tell his father about it first thing in the morning, he finished the rest of the map before settling into his sleeping bag.

Back in the attic, candlelight flickered before it disappeared completely, cold wind killing the flame and plunging the room in complete darkness, moonlight never reaching the windowless room. Only the faded brass cover of the journal shone amidst the darkness as wandering souls fleeted about in their endless gowns of whites.

 

 

Lucia woke to the smell of fried eggs and toast breads seducing him out of the sleeping bag and into the kitchen. While the foyer was a sad excuse as a living space, it was still the better option than the dirty mattresses nested by dust bunnies and wandering spiders above.

After fixing the sleeping bags, Lucia put on his shoes and headed to the kitchen. He was blasted head-on by the smell of waffles and pancakes, maple syrup and some berry jams mixed together in a huge mass of weird concoctions. Lucia lost his appetite in an instant, and guessed it wouldn’t return anymore when King greeted him a ‘Good Morning’ in a ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron.

“I made some blueberry waffles for you, kid! Better eat it while it’s hot. I also made some toasts and eggs, in case you’ll like some extra cholesterol and calories.”

Lucia ignored whatever words that followed. He had learned it since child that a happy, breakfast-making father is the only thing any son in the world can’t stomach, even if said son is the world’s scariest gangster. When Lucia sat with his back turned on his father, it was for extra safety measures.

He eyed the breakfast spread warily. “Where did you get all these food? I’m pretty sure we only packed canned goods and beef jerky.”

“The pub, remember? Turns out that the convenience store closed down, so anything you need to buy in town, they have it.”

“Even gas.”

King sighed. “ _Except_ gas.”

That made Lucia twist around to stare at his dad quizzically. “I thought you asked the girl to fuel the car up?”

“Yeah, but they didn’t have any,” King answered defensively. “Come on, you saw me went back to the car without any tank.”

“I wasn’t exactly paying attention, Dad. Maybe because I was more busy praying we won’t get ambushed by some monster or something.”

“Yeah, well, now you know. So if you need to do any grocery run, just write it down on something or whatever. I’m going back to town again later afternoon to get more supplies and maybe ask around about that pest control.”

“How about cleaners too?”

“Either the pest control or the cleaners.”

Lucia munched on a toast instead of answering. The young man couldn’t help but let his gaze shift up to the ceiling where bunch of spiders took residence in a city of cobwebs.

“Can’t we have both? I reckon there’s an ant _mountain_ by the porch.”

King clucked his tongue, sitting down in front of Lucia who was still staring at the gathered cobwebs. “I brought some those bee suits from the last time you tried to cultivate bee hives, so don’t worry much. In case anything happens, we have a ton of aspirins and bug repellant spray. Pesticides too, so stop worrying.”

Conversation ended with King cleaning up the table. He didn’t even sit down to eat. As King picked up empty plates and mugs, Lucia noticed a huge black stain on the wooden table the size of a quarter. Everything in this house was either made of wood or porcelain. It was eerie.

“Dad, don’t you think we should just sell this house and buy an apartment? Maybe in a town that doesn’t feel like a ghost town.”

King dumped all the dishes in the sink. It was amazing the electricity and water pipes were working again after some weird magic his father had done in the basement.  “Yeah, but we can’t really sell a house that looks like a haunted house either.”

Lucia shrugged. “Let’s sell it as a haunted house then. Like, an attraction site. There are still those ghost hunting clubs, right?”

“Don’t be stupid, kid.” Father and son stared at each other, King frowning at him as he tried to show his unease through facial expressions. This time, King decided to ignore sentimentality for the sake of logic. “Let’s just live here for a while, keep it from getting demolished, then we move back to Mary Loose. Deal?”

Lucia only frowned in reply, but he didn’t argue any further. Lucia wanted nothing more than a roof over his head with a solid ground under the soles of his feet. And warmth. That’s the number one thing his body needs.

After breakfast, father and son decided to wander around the mansion separately. King went to the basement, something about looking for more candles and maybe a generator while Lucia decided the warm weather outside called for an outdoor adventure. He remembered there was a garden beyond the wild, untamed field of grass.

After a few minutes of braving crawling floras and evading aerial fecal bombs, Lucia finally arrived in what used to be a garden. A wall of thick plants and intertwined vines surrounded the garden in a circle as a pathway made of solid earth stretched out in front of him, mimicking the circular shape of the hedge wall. At the center was a huge fountain made of rock that must have been grand in its glory days. It was cracked with age now, moss and vines creeping around and from the cracks.

Although every flower around him was vibrant, the petals bright and colorful, it was the centerpiece of the fountain that caught Lucia’s breath, leaving him stupefied. The angelic figure was, in a way, ethereally beautiful, carrying a vase above its head. He pretended that there were no cracks, that there was clear, freshwater pouting out of the intricately designed vase, that the angelic figure was nothing missing a wing or that there no chipped feathers in the remaining pair. He imagined that age and decay had not affected the stone figure, there the stained and charred cheeks were white and porcelain smooth, that the billowing flow of its dress, the pure, virginal white folds fluttered about the snow white feet dipped in clear, freshwater.

Lucia had never felt so awed from watching a still, stone figure of an angel worn by time and wilderness. As he was about to lay a hand on foot of the statue, his ears picked up the sound of bushes rustling loudly, twigs crunching under heavy weight then—

“MREOR!”

“OOF!”

A pair of paws smacked itself against Lucia’s eyes, a flash of white bursting in the back of Lucia’s eyelids as the heavy weight of a furball sent him tumbling to the ground. He cried out loud as the furry creature thrashed around _right on his head_ , his own hands pried the paws off his face. Wrong move though as the creature suddenly released it claws and scratched the skin of both of his cheeks.

“ _Fuck_!”

“MREOR!”

Another tumble against a hissing furball with screams and flurries of claws and tail later, Lucia landed head first on mud. His back felt cold and wet. He was pretty sure now he was lying on a puddle of mud.

The furball was in fact an orange, borderline obese feline. Happy with its victory, the cat sat on his belly, staring him down with bright green eyes as if daring him to dislodge it.

Lucia couldn’t care less if he would need to maim a cat (after getting his cheeks sliced to ribbons, he would not even feel an ounce of guilt) or at least kick it back into the depths of the jungle that the garden had become. If only the scratch wounds didn’t sting so much, Lucia would have wring its neck and avenged himself against the wild Maine Coon bristling its fur threateningly at him.

Bringing his head up while covering the pair of slashes across both of his cheeks, Lucia mustered his angriest glare _ever_.

“What the hell is your problem? Stupid cat.”

Maine Coons are considered to have intelligence above the average cat, so he guessed the animal might be able to understand him. Even if it did not, it had to have understood the point Lucia was trying to make.

“What the hell are you doing here anyway? Are you lost or something?” Lucia continued his one-sided conversation with the cat. He had the distant feeling that if his father were to hear him talk to a cat, who was still glaring at him condescendingly by the way, Lucia would definitely be thrown into a therapy center faster than he could protest. That was the last of his worry though, because Lucia was slowly getting worried about getting the cat off of him. It was damn _heavy_ , and it was starting to become harder for him to breathe. The stupid cat must be around fifteen pounds of flesh and bones and hair.

When Lucia tried to sit up straight, hands pushing himself up, the cat meowed at him before jumping off his chest and sat on its haunches next to him. Lucia scowled at the cat as he picked himself up and turned for the trail he came from.

Halfway back, he felt something following him. As he turned around, the cat was indeed trailing behind him. Lucia glared at it and it pouted back at him. And then it had the gall to look pitiful, as if Lucia was the one who nearly killed it by scratching its face off.

“You are an annoying, hopeless feline—OW!”

A swift swipe of claws on a bare leg later, Lucia hissed and limped his way home, the cat leading the way back to the main house. That should teach him not to wear shorts to a forest.

By the time Lucia was back in the house, King was already at the porch with heaps upon heaps of old, ruined, and/or useless furniture.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hey. Found any—Oh dear lord.”

Lucia scowled, his eyes narrowing as the cat did the same expression at King. The rest of King’s sentence totally disappeared as he scratched the back of his head. The cat’s tail twitched, warning him not to question its presence, and what Lucia guessed must be a threat to let it stay in the house with them.

Never trust cats, Lucia thought.

While Lucia tended to his wounds, King began moving the rest of the trash off the porch and into a marked pile near where they parked their car. The cat purred loudly and scratched the back of its ears. The two Leagroves turned to stare at the cat.

There had to be some way to get rid of it. There had to be.

As if sensing their thought, the cat turned its eyes at father then son, sharp green eyes piercing them with terror. King loudly declared it a better idea to have the cat around. At least they now have a company that wasn’t the other, even if it was a feline with a mane of striped black (or soot?) with the strangest non-feline eyes ever.

Their day couldn’t get any stranger.

 

 

_“Hey, Blue is back…”_

A gust of wind entered the empty room, a window pane cracking as frost began to gather on the corners.

_ “Didya get it?” _

A wardrobe door opened and closed with a soft thud, a black kettle rolling across the floor. It stopped as it rested against the leg of a desk.

_ “The damn guardian got me.” _

A dry inkwell on the desk shook, the feathers of a quill standing inside it bristled.

_ “Heh. Tough luck, Blue.” _

A cloth slipped off its perch on a standing mirror, revealing the reflection of a ruined bed, shredded sheets, and charred bed posts.

_ “Leave him alone, Red. Guardian’s smarter now.” _

One of the bed’s four wooden posters snapped, the old wood breaking and down the canopy collapsed, belching a cloud of dust.

_ “We’ll get him next time.” _

The mirror’s faded glass shattered as the cold gust of wind threw the windows off their hinges and sent glass shards flying across the room. Laughter left the room as the specters wandered back to the halls of the manor.


	3. Down and Dirty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BECAUSE schyra IS AN ENABLER. Happy reunion, my old friend. (seriously though, we're old)

With all of the broken furniture gone, the house felt emptier than it previously was. The moth-eaten couch was gone, nearly all of the beds were gone as well, and more than half of the mansion’s chairs were thrown into the basement. The only wooden furniture left were tables and desks, and the white grand piano on the grand staircase’s second flooring that, strangely enough, was the only untarnished piece of furniture in the house. 

It must have been made to stand the test of time, Lucia thought, when he found the musical instrument on display in the mezzanine level of the main foyer. 

“Hey, Dad,” he called over his shoulder. His blond hair was tied up with an elastic band, its color matching his dark red shirt and military green cargo shorts. “What’re we going to do with this piano?”

Half a floor below, King grunted at the sudden loss of proper footing, the weight of a new couch heavy behind his back.

“Dad!”

“Shut up! Help me here!”

“This is why I said we should just hire help,” Lucia muttered as he stomped down the stairs, now bare of its original carpet. 

_Creak._

Lucia paused, right foot just hovering on the third step from the bottom. Slowly, he set the foot down next to his left foot, staring at the wooden board, his black sneakers looking like two huge stationary rats. With the same slowness, he raised himself to a step, before stepping back down onto that creaking floorboard. 

There was no sound. 

His breath hitched and hitched higher when he repeated his steps over that certain board, once from above and then again from below. 

_What the hell…_

“Oi, Lucia! We’re not playing hopscotch here!”

“Dad, did you check the floorboards up here in the stairs?”

“Yeah, I did,” his father said as Lucia kept staring at the wood his feet remained planted on it. “I had some of those chemical injected into it. They said it should hold it up until we can have them replaced. It’s completely hollow inside, the termites ate almost all of the wood. Am ‘fraid there might be more pests.”

But that did not explain the creaking boards.

Or, maybe he was just tired and sleepy that his mind started messing around with him. They should probably head to bed.

“Dad, it’s late. Are you done yet? I’m gonna make the bed.”

“Hold it, kid. Gonna finish fixing this couch here…”

Lucia frowned at his father, who was busy finding the right angle for the couch. Grumbling, he stormed down the stairs, ears mindful of any sound it’ll make. 

_Creak._

This time he whirled around as he landed on the bottom step, the board stretched elaborately with carvings on its side. He put his heel on the bottom step before laying the rest of his foot over it. Then he stomped hard on the step, hard and loud enough to earn another ‘Oi!’ from his father.

“What the hell are you doing, brat? Don’t go breaking those stairs, I just got them fixed!”

Lucia wanted to argue that they were not, but he held his tongue and instead observed each step from where he stood all the way up to the top, until his eyes landed on the white grand piano at the mezzanine level. The piano stood there at the wide area with its outer rim propped up. His father had cleaned its insides earlier this afternoon and did not bother putting the cover back down.

Lucia chose not to mind the piano anymore and instead went to join his father in fixing the couch. Ten minutes after, with enough arguments and insults exchanged, the father and son finally agreed on a direction for the couch. They had it tilted 45 degrees facing the left staircase.

“Time to finally sleep!” King cheered, grinning triumphantly at the couch. Lucia could only let a cheek twitch violently in irritation. First of all, his father had spent more time paying attention to what Lucia was suggesting instead of insisting on arguing with him for the sake of arguing, they would have been done after the first try. Secondly, Lucia was tired. He had been roaming the garden again this morning and he was finally able to mark out the places that needed tending the most despite being attacked by a wild, large cat.

Speaking of it, where was that cat?

“Hey Dad,” Lucia turned away from the couch as he surveyed the foyer. “Have you seen Katzchen?”

“You mean the cat?”

“Yeah...”

King shrugged as he wiped off sweat from his brows. “Haven’t seen it since you brought it inside. Maybe it went out again. By the way, I’ve cleaned the first two bedrooms in the west wing. Pick any you like. You should go and get some rest. I’ll just put away the tools before I head off to bed too.”

“Okay. Night, Dad.”

“Night, kiddo.”

Lucia took the east staircase. He purposefully dragged his feet up the steps to feel for that creak again. As expected, there was barely a sound except the rubber sole of his sneakers on wood.

Maybe he was really just imagining things. With all the time spent cleaning the house and fixing furniture and the lack of sleep, not to mention the plain eeriness of this place, he was bound to have some sort of weird hallucination. 

Reaching the mezzanine level, Lucia crossed the piano then took another flight of stairs stretching to the left and straight to the west wing that leads to a hall with numerous doors on either side. He recalled most of them were bedrooms, with a couple of study rooms in between.

All of the doors had brass doorknobs with large. Between each door was an ornately framed portraits hang above lowly set mantles, some of which held empty vases.

Lucia found the two rooms they cleaned up earlier and looked at the portrait at the space between their doors. He recalled his father words from earlier this afternoon when they were setting up the new beds. “Whoever used to live here must be real lookers.” 

His father was right. It was a portrait of a haughty man with ashen blond hair combed back and stern gray eyes, though Lucia could not tell if this was due to the painting’s age. The man was broad-shouldered and seemed to be staring coldly at the painter. His large hand was resting on the head of a couch, its color almost grayish red. On the couch was a woman with almond-shaped eyes and a quirked smile, her blond hair pulled up into a beehive. She was wearing a ballroom dress, and on her lap was… 

“A crocodile?” Lucia spluttered, eyes widening at the creature on the painting. He leaned forward as if it could help make him see more clearly, but he was right. It was definitely a crocodile. 

“There’s a what!” His father yelled from entrance of the wing.

King hurried over to his side, his head kept turning from left to right as if inspecting the floor for any crocodiles.

“The painting, dad. Look.” Lucia pointed at the portrait.

King stared at where he pointed and whistled. He muttered, “A real looker, I say.”

Lucia sighed softly. He chose the room further into the hallway as his and left the first room for his father.

_Creak._

He froze, hand inches away from the doorknob. His eyes shot straight towards the wooden floor under his sneakers though he swore the sound did not come from beneath him this time. He could sense a repeat of his previous experience at the staircase.

“Did you hear that, dad?”

_Creak._

No reply from his father. Lucia looked away from the floor.

“Dad?”

Lucia blinked. The space where his father previously occupied was empty.

“Dad?” he called out again, almost softly, and waited. Again, nothing but dead air. His heart hammered against his chest, and Lucia could feel chills crawling up his spine. “Dad, this isn’t funny.”

He yelled for his dad again, this time more frantic as he stepped away from the door. His breathing was getting shorter as his guts churned in a slowly growing fear. “Dad, stop messing around!”

Lucia ran from the hallway and skidded to a halt at the top of the staircase. Then he stared a second longer at the grand foyer before him, his jaw slacking off. And then he screamed.

“Oi, kiddo!”

He turned and ran, back and deeper into the hallway, past grinning paintings and stretching shadows chasing his feet.

“Damn it, Lucia. Wake up!”

Hands latched onto his shoulders and they were shaking him, violently jerking his head back and forth and left and right. Lucia tried fending them away but their grip on him was too strong, shaking him so hard as if there’s naught a bone in him and trying to break through gravity alone.

“Lucia! _Wake up_!”

 _“Back,”_ the wind hissed next to his ear. He batted at it, as if it was a materialized object floating right beside him.

_“Back!”_

The wind hissed again like an angry snake and it licked cold air against his cheek. Lucia slipped and he sprung forward, hands reached out only to grab empty air. Gravity pulled him back and he lurched forward and almost hit his head against his father’s worried face. Eyes the same shade of gold as his were wide with concern and fear. Lucia felt himself choking on air when he noticed the sweat beading profusely on his father’s forehead. 

“What the hell is the matter with you, kiddo? Suddenly screaming like that and scaring the shit out of me, I thought someone broke in and was trying to kill you.”

Lucia realized they were still at the foyer and he was sleeping on the couch while his father took the floor. His sleeping bag was thrown messily on the floor.

A dream then. It was just a dream.

“Dream,” he whispered in between shallow breaths. “A dream,” he repeated some more, as if convincing himself. 

But it had felt so _real_. The hands, his father, the portrait…

“The painting,” Lucia remembered. King stared at him oddly.

“The what?”

“The _painting_ ,” Lucia said again. “Outside the room. Between our rooms.”

King was looking at him worriedly, that rare ‘father’ look he only gives when he’s seriously concerned. “There was a painting, in the hallway, west wing, between those two rooms we cleaned out…”

“Oh, the one with the couple? The auctioneer picked it up already when you were out in the gardens.”

His head shot up instantly at his father’s words. They sold the painting? But he thought…

“We have to get that painting back!” 

Lucia had no idea what the hell made him believe that, but something told him had to. Suddenly, he felt that the painting was not meant to leave this house, _it belonged here_. It belonged to the wall outside his room, and Lucia just could not understand _why does it matter_?

But Lucia knew he was not just imagining the sudden jump of his heart and the sudden skip of a beat. Something bad was about to happen the moment that painting left the manor.

“Lucia, whatever this is about, stop it. It’s already past midnight and it’s too dark outside. We are _not_ going out of here and drive through that forest just to get a painting that _you_ told me to give away.”

“I changed my mind.” He had to get it back. There cannot be any room for argument. “I have to get it back, Dad. Now!”

Lucia bolted out of the couch and grabbed his jacket from its back then dashed for the door. Vaguely, he heard his father cursed his name but Lucia did not care. Something was fueling him, pushing him onward. He leaped over the porch and onto the muddy trail out of the manor leaving imprints of his sneakers’ soles on the ground.

“Lucia, you don’t even know where the auctioneer lives!”

But he did. For some strange reason, Lucia knew where despite not having been to the place or met the auctioneer. He pushed the front gates open and slipped into the dark forest. 

In retrospect, he must have been mad to suddenly run out of the house just to retrieve a painting in the middle of the night. And when asked, ten years later, he must’ve been possessed to go that far. 

\--

_“I feel lonely, love…”_

Doryu paused from his writing to stare at his candelabra. The candlelight had flickered. He did not imagine it, and he was certain all windows were shut because of the downpour from hours ago. Candlelit flames were not supposed to flicker when there was no breeze nor a blow of a breath in the room. There was barely a sign of life in the room, in fact, other than his soft but nearly dead breathing. 

_“I, too, darling…”_

Then it happened again. The fire flickered once more. 

Doryu jumped up from his seat, his quill left perched on the ink well, and walked away from his desk to check his window. 

_“I want to go back home…”_

It was securely locked. He put his palm at the very edge of the pane and felt nothing. It was shut so tight it was impossible for the tiniest gust of wind to enter.

_"We've been separated for so many times..."_

He grabbed the curtain and pulled it close. He reasoned that way, he would be able to tell if there was truly wind drifting in from by the shifting of shadows on his wall.

Reassured, Doryu returned to his desk and resumed his work. 

Just as he was about to sign his name on the contract he was reviewing, the ink bottle burst and ink sprayed all over the table and the contract and his face, staining his eyeglasses black. Shards of glass landed on his hands. Swearing loudly, he threw the quill away for a handkerchief and was about to dab ink stain off his cravat when he noticed the painting he was about to sold to Don Ruby propped up against the door of his study room.

Faintly, he could hear his name being yelled and something banging his front door.

Doryu inched his way slowly towards the painting and tried to remember when he had moved it out of the storage room as he absentmindedly dabbed on the ink stain. Then he recalled that a few hours ago, shortly before dinner, Don Ruby had sent his men over to pick it up together with his payment for the painting.

“Mr. Doryu! Please open the door!”

He ignored the incessant banging as his eyes were attached to the painting, the pair of reptilian eyes staring back at him mesmerized him to keep walking forward and pulled him closer.

“Mr. Doryu!”

\--

_“That was very uneventful.”_

_“Was it? I found it entertaining.”_

The piano played a melody as hammers struck strings softly.

_“Tell me, Blue. What were you hoping for?”_

A loud boom echoed in the main hall, the sound as loud as an explosion. The staircase’s wooden floor shook as the strings vibrated violently, the chandelier shaking from the resonance.

_“I was hoping for something more exquisite.”_

**Author's Note:**

> There is an alternate version of this with the first two chapters written by me and the rest by schyra, titled Whispers. It can be found in FF.Net.


End file.
